


houses out of cardboard boxes

by wizened_cynic



Series: Dress Your Family in Kevlar and Armani [12]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizened_cynic/pseuds/wizened_cynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily and her mother, Christmas in London. Across the ocean, Dave gets his ass kicked at Halo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	houses out of cardboard boxes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Prentiss/Rossi Advent Calendar.

They closed the case in the early hours of Christmas Eve, with barely enough time for them to fly back to Quantico before heading off to their respective destinations. Morgan had stayed in Chicago with his mother, JJ and Will were taking Henry back to New Orleans, and Reid was heading back to Las Vegas. Hotch and Jack would be staying in town, and Garcia had planned a "sinful getaway" with Kevin to god knows where. Dave was supposed to have arrived at his sister's home in Los Angeles two days before, but instead he was driving her to the airport to make sure she got onto the correct flight.

"Pregnancy brain," she said with a yawn. "My excuse for everything." She closed her eyes and rested her head against the window. Eleven weeks and she was still mind-numbingly exhausted most of the time. At least the morning sickness was finally tapering off.

"Tell me again why Christmas dinner is at 2:00 pm on Christmas day," Dave said. "Is that a Prentiss thing?"

"It's a British thing." Emily's aunt Lillian had gone to London for a Beatles concert in 1962 and never came back. In the intervening years, she adopted all things British as well as two Russian tortoises, which she and her husband favored over their three children. Dave had laughed so hard when she first told him that he scared Sergio.

Dave shook his head, as if he couldn't decide which he found more ridiculous, Christmas dinner that was actually a late lunch, or the fact that Emily's family could very well match his own when it came to the crazy. "This is complete madness," he said. "Next year I might have to come along just to meet these people."

"Do you really think we'll be doing much traveling next year?"

"Well, I'm not going to just sit at home and let my family descend on us. Think about you and the poor kid. You two will end up being kissed to death by Rossi's."

Emily turned to grin at him. "That doesn't seem like a terrible way to go, being kissed to death by Rossi's."

Dave snorted. "Easy for you to say, _you've_ never been kissed by my great-aunt Elda. It stays with you for months."

"Must be in the genes," she said as they arrived at the terminal. The kiss they exchanged before he dropped her off was quick but desperate and Emily hated to be the one to break it.

"I'll be back soon," she promised as she let go of her arms around him.

"Don't you worry," he told her. "I'm not letting you get away from me so easily."

*

The flight to Heathrow was seven hours, and Emily slept through the first five of them, waking up only once when the Kenyan businessman in the window seat next to hers asked to be let out to use the lavatory. She woke again when breakfast was served, the smell of airplane food making her retch into the paper bag she had to scramble to yank out of the seat pocket in front of her.

Her aunt had arranged for a town car to collect her and Emily located the driver without too much trouble. Traffic was sparse at this time in the morning and she soon nodded off to the gentle patter of rain, the car too warm and the drive too long for her to keep her eyes open.

She checked in at the Mandarin Oriental, her mother's hotel of choice whenever they came to London, and opted for sleep over cleanliness. Not a choice that the Ambassador would approve of, but Emily had long ago learned to live with her mother's silent judgment.

Dave had been horrified to learn that she would be staying in a hotel twenty minutes away from her aunt's Kensington mansion.

"Now _this_ is a Prentiss thing," Emily had explained. "We throw a good party, and then we kick you out. My mother's the only exception."

"If I even suggested that," Dave had said, "my sisters would look at me like I'd just murdered their firstborn children. I don't enjoy sharing a bathroom with two teenage boys, but I enjoy incurring my sisters' wrath even less."

When Emily woke up again, it was to her phone buzzing with a message from Dave, who had reached Los Angeles safely and was playing Halo 2 with his nephews. _This is a little awkward. I think Bridget wants me to give them the sex talk and the importance of using condoms, which is ironic considering I spent the last year trying to get you pregnant._

Before she could reply, there was a knock on the door.

"Emily!" Her mother's smile was genuine. She leaned in to kiss Emily on both cheeks. "Are you ready to go?"

_Shit._

"I, um, need to take a shower," Emily said, feeling young and shabby in front of her mother, who was perfectly dressed for the event, elegant and sleek without stealing too much attention from the hosts of the party. Emily, on the other hand, had been living out of her go-bag for days and the only clean item of clothing she had was a turtleneck that she'd washed in the bathtub of the Holiday Inn.

"We still have time," her mother said. "May I wait for you inside?"

Sometimes Emily wondered how emotionally stunted her child would turn out, given the gene pool he or she had been blessed to come from. "Mother, of course you can wait inside. Make yourself at home," she said, even though she hated that phrase when she was a kid. How could you make yourself at home when home wasn't anywhere? She knew, now, that it wasn't her mother's fault, just like it wasn't her mother's fault that mothers inherently had the power to make a person regress, to bring up their childhood hurts, imagined and real.

"Thank you, Emily."

Emily settled her mother with a cup of tea and the bag of Maltesers that came in the welcome basket, then headed into the bathroom. The water was hot and welcome against her skin as she scrubbed away the week she had had, chasing down a serial rapist in Evanston. By the time she stepped out of the shower, she had managed to reach a level of calm and ease that would get her through this afternoon and evening.

Her mother had laid out Emily's clothes on the bed for her, a gesture so unprecedented and kind that Emily found startling. The Ambassador was known for a lot of things, but being kind wasn't high on that list. The feeling lasted all of two minutes, and then the Ambassador tapped her wrist. "Watch the time, my dear."

"Yes, Mother." She sighed and prepared to disrobe. It was embarrassing, still, to change in front of her mother, but her mother was politely looking away and Emily wasn't fifteen years old anymore and trying on her cotillion gown. She had survived worse than being tacitly criticized by her mother, she could count on that.

What she hadn't counted on was her mother turning around just as Emily was stepping into her trousers. Emily wasn't showing yet --- it was still too early --- and even though the team knew, only she and Dave were able to see the actual evidence of this baby in the form of her round, growing belly.

Until now, that was.

Emily heard the gasp first, before she saw the expression of pure astonishment on her mother's face.

"I could explain," she quickly pointed out. "But then we'd be late."

*

It was funny how the ride to Aunt Lillian's felt even longer than her flight from Washington. The Ambassador was quiet, possibly still stunned from the knowledge that she was going to be a grandmother. They hadn't spoken since leaving the hotel and Emily had not yet provided an explanation. Honestly, she didn't think it required much of one beyond, "Hi Mom, I had sex and got pregnant. Hell, I had sex _to_ get pregnant."

Nothing was more garish than Harrods at Christmastime, their decorations and lights easily putting Macy's window display to shame. Still, it was a mesmerizing sight to behold, and Emily caught herself staring at it like Henry often does at a picture of Bob the Builder.

"Do you remember that friend you had?" her mother suddenly asked. "You were about nine years old. She was a distant relative, a second cousin, maybe, and she took you to Harrods one morning before it opened. I've forgotten her name."

For the second time in an hour, Emily was surprised. "You knew about that?"

"Of course I did. You talked about it for days."

"I wonder what happened to her." They had moved to Ukraine shortly after, where they stayed until her mother was posted to Italy.

They rode in silence for another few minutes, until the Ambassador finally asked, "When are you due?"

"Next summer. First week of August."

"And this was . . . planned?"

Emily had to laugh at her mother's bemusement. "I'm thirty-eight years old, Mother," she said. "Yes, this was planned. Practically down to the _minute_ , I'll say."

"Emily!" The rise of color to her mother's cheeks made Emily feel oddly pleased. But the Ambassador laughed as well, delicate and precise as always.

"Mom, I assure you, this child is very much planned and very much wanted."

"So were you."

It was Emily's turn to blush.

"Why do you look so surprised? Have I never told you that before?"

She hadn't, but that wasn't the point. "I try not to think about you and Dad that way."

"Well, it's the truth, even if it's not proper table talk at dinner."

Emily glanced out the window, not sure how to respond. Not that she had to worry about that for long, as the Ambassador was an expert at moving the conversation along. "And the father?"

"What about him? Or," Emily grinned, reverting back into the teenager she had been, eager to torment her mother as long as it meant she received some attention, "are you asking if there even is one?"

Her mother let out a sound that was half-chuckle, half-sigh. "Emily, I hope that your child will be as cheeky as you are. It would only be fair."

"The father is fine with it," Emily smiled at the memory of Dave's expression at the ultrasound, delirious with joy when they heard the heartbeat for the first time. "He's really happy."

"And he's a good man?"

"A very good man." At that moment, Emily missed Dave, her longing for him so acute that it hurt to breathe. "He'll be a great father. He doesn't believe that about himself yet, though."

"Ah," remarked the Ambassador, with the tone that meant she was thinking about Emily's father, who had promised to attend his sister's Christmas dinner and, predictably, cancelled at the last minute. "I am extremely happy for you, Emily."

She reached over to hold Emily's hand and Emily found herself holding hers back. "Now, should we talk about names?"

 

*

"How were the tortoises?" Dave asked.

Emily still couldn't work out what time it was in California (pregnancy brain), and the afternoon with her relatives hadn't helped.

"The tortoises are in fine form," Emily answered. "The female laid an egg last week. My cousin finally got her PhD, but we didn't talk much about that. Laying an egg, now _that's_ impressive. How are the nephews?"

"Kicked my ass on the PlayStation. I won't be able to live it down, so I bought their silence."

"That's why you're their favorite uncle."

"Someone has to be."

"Dave," she said, sliding beneath the covers of the too-soft hotel bed, "I think my mother gave us her blessing."

There was a pause, and then Dave said, "Wow. That's --- okay. Wow."

"And I didn't even have to bribe her."

He laughed, and Emily missed him all over again. "Good to know. Merry Christmas, Em."

"Merry Christmas."


End file.
